


The Reason

by genagirl



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Pre-Slash, Some Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 02:40:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/960608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genagirl/pseuds/genagirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Naomi is thrilled with what Jim has to say.  All right, maybe not thrilled, but happy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Reason

The Reason  
by Gena 

 

Naomi Sandburg watched with bemused affection as her  
son  
hurried into the loft apartment, shook the water from  
his hair and  
uttered a groan of frustration. “Have a good day,  
dear?” she  
queried. Blair grinned sheepishly and busied himself  
with hanging  
his coat and mopping the floor.

“Let’s just say the last people on board Titanic had  
less  
stress,” he said. “I had to walk a mile in this down  
pour because  
my stupid car decides it need a new water pump.” She  
could see  
he was soaked, his jeans were wet clear up to his hips  
and even  
the his shirt front was damp. Blair sneezed, brushed  
his  
streaming hair out of his eyes and sighed. “I just  
want to forget  
this day has ever happened.” He sneezed again.

“I’ll make you some ginger tea, sweetie.” Blair  
nodded,  
sneezing once again. 

“What’s wrong, Chief?” Jim Ellison asked the moment  
he got  
the door open. Naomi gasped in surprise but quickly  
recovered.   
After Blair had explained about Jim’s senses she’d  
been amazed  
she hadn’t noticed his abilities before. Her son had  
been adamant  
in assuring her Ellison never eavesdropped on private  
conversations but his close observations around her  
son disturbed  
her in a way she couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

“Oh, just got soaked walking home,” Blair said. 

“Walking? Damnit, Chief, you know how to use the  
phone.”   
He glared at Blair, eyes narrowed, mouth a hard line.   
Naomi rose,  
instinctively going to her child’s aid but Blair was  
already waving  
his hand in the larger man’s face.

“Chill, Jim,” he said evenly. “You were in court, I  
didn’t need  
to bother you with something like this.”

“Chill? You’re the one who’s chilled,” Ellison  
reached out, his  
earlier anger displaced by something Naomi didn’t  
recognize at  
first, and placed his palm against Blair’s forehead.   
“You’ve got a  
slight temperature, Sandburg. Go get those wet things  
off then I  
want you to take a hot shower and rest.”

“Jim,” Naomi piped up, “he isn’t a child.” But at the  
same  
time she wanted to say ‘he’s my child, I’ll take care  
of this’ .

“Could have fooled me,” Jim said. He pointed to the  
bathroom, not giving an inch until Blair saluted and  
marched inside.   
Naomi watched as Ellison shed his own wet coat and  
hat, carefully  
hanging both on the hooks beside the door, spread  
paper  
underneath to catch the water and washed his hands.

“I really think you’re being a little……,” she paused,  
sizing Jim  
up a moment before continuing, “a little anal as Blair  
would say.”

Jim smiled at that but didn’t say anything. He set  
about  
opening a can of Campbell’s chicken and noodle soup  
and heating it.   
She watched him, saw the care he took with what he  
did, how he  
added a large glass of orange juice to the tray he’d  
prepared, how  
he did it all without fuss. Blair emerged from the  
bathroom in a  
fogbank, rubbing vigorously at his hair. He grinned  
at his mother  
and headed for his room. She followed. “Can he……”   
She  
gestured towards the kitchen.

“Mom,” Blair frowned. “I told you, Jim doesn’t listen  
in on my  
conversations. He’s not some kind of control  
freak….well, he is,  
but not like that.”

“Why is he making such a big deal about this,  
sweetie?” She  
looked at her son in open puzzlement. 

“It’s just Jim’s way, mom,” Blair assured her. “Just  
go with  
it, okay?” She nodded and left to let him dress. Jim  
looked up  
but didn’t say anything.

“You can sleep upstairs, Chief,” Jim said. Blair  
froze in his  
tracks, shaking his head.

“No way, man, that’s your bed. I’ll sleep right  
here,” he  
plopped down on the couch but a second later was  
hauled to his  
feet by his partner.

“You need to rest and you can’t do that down here.   
Up!” Jim  
escorted him, one hand on Blair’s elbow the other  
balancing the  
loaded tray. Naomi couldn’t hide her shock. She  
gaped after  
them, listening as Jim practically tucked her son into  
his large  
bed. She was still standing there when the detective  
came down.   
Jim circled her, heading for the kitchen. She  
followed.

“Jim, what is this? He’s not sick, he’s got a bit of  
a cold not  
a fatal disease.” Ellison frowned, opened the  
refrigerator and  
pulled out the orange juice again. “Jim, I don’t want  
you treating  
Blair like this. I raised an independent young man,  
he can take  
care of himself, he does not need to be coddled.” Her  
words had  
an effect on the cop. Jim slammed the carton down,  
juice  
spraying the counter and even the ceiling.

“No, he doesn’t,” Ellison hissed, “you raised a very  
independent young man.” The anger in his face had  
returned.   
Naomi shrank back, heart hammering as she watched him  
struggled for control. Jim took a deep breath then  
said, “you  
raised a man who can take care of himself better than  
anyone I  
know. He can survive anything, anything.”

“Then why?” She asked, needing to know.

Jim sighed, shoulders slumping. “Blair told you about  
me,” he  
looked up at her, “about my senses. He didn’t tell  
you how…how  
hard it is for me sometimes.” The big cop leaned back  
against the  
counter, rubbing a hand over his forehead as he went  
on. “There  
are days I think I’ll die from the sheer chaos of  
noise. I filter  
most of it out automatically but some day I can’t.   
Some days it’s  
too much and Blair is right there with me. He doesn’t  
ever leave  
my side. When I’m puking my guts out because someone  
left a  
tuna sandwich in the breakroom for three days, he’s  
holding my  
head. When the sound of horn sends a spike through  
my skull, he  
pushes the pain away. I get so angry with myself for  
being like  
this, for being a fr……,” ellison bit his lips so hard  
Naomi expected  
to see blood. “I take that anger out on Blair, I  
can’t help it. I  
lash out and he takes it and turns it into something  
else,  
something good. I’m not like anyone else in the  
world and the only  
person I can talk to about it is Blair.”

“But…” Naomi shook her head, not understanding. 

“When he does that, when he stays with me even after  
I’ve  
been an asshole, when were knee deep in shit, and I’m  
puking and  
screaming with pain and I look at him and he looks  
back with that  
‘what did you expect me to do’ look. Right then I  
think to myself  
‘he must love me a lot to put up with this crap.’ . “   
Jim reached out  
and took her hand in his. “This is the only way I can  
show it,  
Naomi. Blair doesn’t need anything. He doesn’t need  
my help.”

‘And that turns you into Attila the Nurse?” Naomi  
asked  
softly. Ellison laughed then, a rueful sound.

“Yeah. I can do this. I can make sure he eats, I can  
hand  
him his coat so he doesn’t walk out in a snowstorm  
without it. I  
can push him behind me when I think there’s going to  
be trouble.   
It’s the only way I can show him.” 

Naomi didn’t let him get away with it. She touched  
Jim’s  
cheek, her eyes level. “Show him?”

Ellison nodded. “It’s the only way I can show him I  
love him  
just as much.” 

Naomi smiled, a wavering smile, but a smile none the  
less.   
She pulled her son’s friend into her arms, noting the  
hesitation  
before Jim returned her embrace. “Thank you,” she  
whispered,  
knowing he would hear her. Jim pulled back, gazing  
down at her  
in confusion. “For being what he needs.”


End file.
